Pope Could Seek to Fix Church's Troubled Relationship With China
Fraught Relations With Beijing Overshadow the Vatican's Aspirations in Asia
Updated Aug. 12, 2014 11:21 a.m. ET
By Deborah Ball in Rome and Mark Magnier in Beijing
Pope Francis ' first trip to Asia could afford the pontiff a fresh opportunity to reach out to China, one of the most complex and troublesome issues facing the Vatican.
Fraught relations between the Holy See and Beijing overshadow the Catholic Church's aspirations for Asia. China is attractive for the church given the country's huge population and the spiritual vacuum left by eroding Maoist ideology. But renewed troubles over the naming of Catholic bishops have cast a chill on relations between the two sides.
Catholicism reached China in 1294 and eventually gained influence, particularly among the upper classes. But after 1949, the officially atheist Communist Party expelled Catholic and other missionaries, and in 1957 it established the state-run Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, which rejects Vatican authority.
Critically, the CPA also began appointing its own bishops, creating a rupture with the Vatican, which regards such decisions as an inalienable right of the Holy See. During the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, many Catholics were beaten, and some were killed.
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